ESA releases time-lapse clip showing the rare event

Jun 6, 2012 09:58 GMT  ·  By

Officials at the European Space Agency (ESA) have just released a video showing the solar transit that Venus made between June 5-6. The rare astronomical event will not take place again until December 2117 and 2125, respectively.

This time-lapse video is put together from data collected by a Belgian solar imager instrument called SWAP, which is installed aboard the ESA Proba-2 microsatellite. The latter is just one of many spacecraft the space agency trained to observe the transit.

SWAP images the Sun in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) wavelengths. It perceived Venus as a dark disk passing in front of the star. The instrument began its observations at 19:45 UTC, and saw the phenomenon start at 22:16 UTC.

It also managed to capture a disruption traveling across the solar surface (4-second mark in the video), as well as a coronal mass ejection (CME) heading away from the Sun (towards the end of the clip).